“You’re fired”

Yesterday, the second of two school visits I’ve now done for the Trading Places scheme organised by Oxford University took place. It involved going to talk to and do a bit of a workshop on media careers with a class of teenagers (13 - 14 yrs), alongside Syed Ahmed from The Apprentice in Birmingham (yesterday), and with Nabil Elouahabi (Tariq from Eastenders), in Manchester last month.

Trading Places is one of those schemes which probably risks coming across as patronising, but in lieu of any better ideas or wider changes in society is a well-meant and necessary attempt to bridge gaps created and maintained by tradition.
The specific aim of Trading Places is to attract the brightest ethnic minority students to apply to Oxford University, and the broader goal (one with which it’s hard to quibble) is to simply encourage bright students from backgrounds which have little tradition of applying to top universities in general to consider where a degree might take them.
I found out about the scheme in an email from the Oxford Careers Service which said that they were looking for alumni who ideally fulfilled the following three criteria:

1) That they had been state-school educated
2) That they had gone on from Oxford to an “interesting” career to which 14 year olds might relate
3) That they be from an ethnicity currently under-represented at Oxford University (from what I recall of my time there, this would include anyone who wasn’t white)

I got in touch to say I’d be happy to help, but warning them that I didn’t fulfill all the criteria. Since they did pick me, a white journalist, I’m presuming they weren’t flooded with offers of help from ethnic minority state-school educated rockstars and astronauts. I wonder whether this is because the state-school educated ethnic minorities of Oxford, an already smallish group, a) never heard about the scheme, b) don’t actually fancy being the poster child for state-schooled ethnic minority success (fair enough), or c) are too busy flying to the moon and interviewing superstars for MTV.
The day was a success, I think. I tried to convey that you don’t have to have it all worked out at 14, 18 or even 21; I hadn’t realised I wanted to work as a writer or editor until the summer I graduated. I’m pretty sure they understood what I was trying to say: university buys you time in this respect, rather than wastes it. And I tried to dispel the idea that if you do go to a well-respected university, it means you’ll be slaving away nine to five, 24/7 studying non-stop for three years. Erm, unless you take a science degree. I also talked to them about 4Talent Central and good ol’ Hotdog magazine.
Syed presented what I guess might be called the flip-side, stressing his years of hard graft in places like McDonalds (trivia of the day: he earned five stars at Maccy Ds) and suggesting they begin planning their lives now in order not to be left behind. Horses for courses, I suppose.

I didn’t have the balls to tell him I’ve never seen any of The Apprentice.

Old Media vs New Media: The Case Of The Collins Podcast

Caution: not-exactly-revolutionary insights ahead…

You know what I love about working in new media more than anything? It’s not the aesthetic. Gadgetry and computers, even those hailed for their clean design, aren’t beautiful. Or not to me. I can respect the way a nice bit of kit has been designed, but it could never make my heart sing, in the true sixth-form poetry sense of the phrase. Even at a more mundane level, give me a dustily comfortable study heaving with leather-bound books and battered oak-paneling over a tooled-up media suite humming with the glare of progress any day of the week. And I’m certainly not in love with the burning eyeballs, cramping fingers and Steptoe spine that are a heavy day’s work’s legacy, though that’s hardly new media-specific.

No, what I love most about online journalism is the sheer speed and accessibility, the chance to just get on with it, have an idea and make it happen. Yesterday afternoon I was proofing for publication on 4Talent Central an interview that journalist Karen Krizanovich had done with the annoyingly multi-talented Andrew Collins, presenter of Radio 4’s Banter, writer of Where Did It All Go Right?, ex-editor of Q magazine and, recently, co-host of a series of podcasts with the excellent Richard Herring, wackily entitled The Collings & Herrin Podcasts.

These are nice podcasts. People should hear them. Andrew describes them as “our own sideways look at the news. Our fervent wish is to recreate our now legendary news reviews from my now-defunct BBC 6 Music show, except without the indie records interrupting us, and without the need to temper the content for fear of offending a Sunday afternoon BBC radio audience. We don’t get paid, and they are free to listen to, it’s all done for the love of laughter.” It would seem to make sense to link to these podcasts from the article, no? Better still, why don’t we host one direct as a sample for the readers?

Granted, I have about as little experience of working in the Old Media as eternal trainee Jimmy Olsen - and he’s fictional - having spent but two years on an old-school film magazine without a website (the much-missed - er, by me, anyway - Hotdog magazine). But even in my ignorance, I do know that it wasn’t really the monthly magazine cultural ethos to go from this initial thought at about five in the afternoon, to heading over to Andrew’s blog, contacting the man direct, asking if we could host his podcast, to him checking whether that’s ok with other folks, to me uploading the podcast and sticking it on our frontpage next morning.

This is a slightly different type of example of course, but I remember that trying to organize a competition to win DVDs, t-shirts and assorted branded tat in Hotdog used to seem to take a minimum of a fortnight, from initial email to press officer, to permission forms, promo images, faxing legal agreements, passing assets to a designer, tweaking copy, proofing PDFs, obtaining approval… god, it brings me out in a giant yawn just thinking about it.

Of course, in this example you’re dealing with huge companies who “need” to make sure they’re “on brand” and other such tedium, in the grand cause of increasing the audience numbers for films of variable quality, while the other is simply downloadable audio files featuring established media pundit types in a not-for-profit scenario.

So perhaps it’s about the money flying around, or lack of it, not the medium. And that’s fine. If big corporations want to hinder themselves by slowing everything down, that’s their absolutely their right. But if people like Andrew and Richard want to make their own lives easier by letting grubby web monkeys like myself promote their for-the-love-of-it work for free, that’s, to me, actually rather wonderful.

As stated in this episode, if anyone would like to buy out Andrew and Richard’s podcast series, they’ll happily look at all offers, starting at c. £5 mil or near offer.

TITS OR GTFO! Why don’t more women play games?

Sarah’s been getting righteous on 4Talent Central.

“The gaming industry seems to be concerned that women aren’t spending enough money on games. How can it appeal to them? Well… there are some pretty obvious places to start. And what’s the point of a panel discussion about the issues relating to women in games if everyone’s too afraid of the word “feminism” to criticise anything?”

Full article here.

I’m just doing my job… it’s not my fault if I Lovett.

I’ll be honest: I’d have been skeptical if someone had told me a week ago that I’d soon be in love with a razor-wielding maniac. That was before I saw Sweeney Todd. Good lord, but I’m sure a psychopath shouldn’t be quite that attractive. All of a sudden I find myself questioning my previous disdain for those freakish American women who marry notorious serial killers on death row. Though it must be remembered that their homicidal hubbies generally don’t look even half as fine as Johnny Depp, or sport dashingly tailored leatherwear like it’s a second skin that’s been marinated in sweaty revenge. He can slit my throat and throw me in the incinerator any day of the week - it would totally be worth it for the physical contact.
Not sure how all this affects the clause in my current will that on death my body should be rendered in a hair product manufacturing plant and sent to David Tennant under the guise of the latest word in gel for the discerning Timelord who likes to use that bit too much product. Feel I’ve betrayed David in some way, sigh.
Enough of this macabre speculation! Disturbing lust aside, how was Sweeney Todd as a film? Even leaving Mr Depp out of the equation, I was incredibly impressed. I disagree with a review which maintained that Helena Bonham Carter can’t sing - it’s more that she’s not a trained pro, and thus her vocals express a bit of humanity and character: perfect for Mrs Lovett, who must surely take her place in the great pantheon of movie villains who are completely amoral - in the true sense of that word. Her genius is far removed from the cackling schadenfreude of folk who take pleasure in their victim’s pain; she’s simply spied an unmissable business opportunity, augmented in its efficacy by her passion for the demon barber and the fact that it solves his problems too. Respect.
I could write at length about the supporting cast, but of course Alan Rickman is beautifully wrong, and of course Timothy Spall is splendidly unctuous - no surprises there. Sacha Baron Cohen is fabulous too, although to say why would slightly spoil his plotline.
As an adaptation, it’s flawless: they’ve cut three hours of stage-time down to two hours of screen-time, and it actually feels like barely an hour and a half. Oh, just go see it, why don’t you? Even if you normally hate musicals - Sondheim’s songs flow seamlessly into the plot, rather like opera - there are no off-putting “Here is the dialogue. And now… [turn to camera] we sing!” moments. Top notch.

Carry On Cardiff

Still giggling over the demented but brilliant fan fiction that is Torchwood.

God, it was great. Really great. Although I could equally understand the viewpoint of someone who thought it was terrible.

The whole thing was precisely like someone told an over-excitable Buffy/Who fan who’d been watching a lot of Carry On films to outline their ideal episode. The result:

“Ok, so SPIKE comes through a mystical portal and there’s all this ROCK MUSIC, because he’s the COOLEST, OMG, and he does something evil and COOL, and yet AMBIGUOUS, like chucking a mugger off a multi-storey car-park, then he goes to a bar and has GUNS, haha lol@ bar clientele. [insert: fanboy pleasing but quite funny Star Wars ref]
Ok, so, then ANGEL CAPTAIN JACK comes in, all masterful and hott and his coat is BILLOWING and they walk towards each other, like, forever, with all this music, and you think they’re going to fight, but, no even better, they KISS, like, FOREVER, and THEN THEY FIGHT! And kiss, and fight. And then they have a drink, and fight, and kiss, and kiss, and drink and banter and fight, fight, gay banter, kiss, fight.
Then some other shit happens with the fringey lady and characters I don’t really care about, only with Captain Spike and Captain Angel making much innuendo, lolcore, and they are both totally gay for a mystical diamond or something, and they kiss, then there is peril of some kind, STILL MORE innuendo, KISSING, and SPIKE THROWS JACK OFF A BUILDING, OMG, but WAIT he is NOT dead, ahahaaaa and Spike is all oh noez, then more peril, more innuendo, something about a gay diamond trap bomb that might explode the world, but the mystical hellmouth rift thinger eats the bomb and saves Cardiff woo yay, then kissing, more fighting, more innuendo, and kissing, and SOME EMOTIONAL REVEAL OF JACK’S DARK PAST that means nothing as yet, but aha, you will tune in to find out, only not really, because it’s all about the SEXYSEXY SEX and no-one gives a monkey’s about the plot and probably Kenneth Williams will star as an alien orgy choreographer in the next episode because that is the only place left to go. Fin.”

If you did not watch it, it probably sounds like I am exaggerating, but this is not one word of a lie.

In the real world I would give it 6/10 (maybe 7) because it really is quite silly, but for sheer enjoyment I give the full Tufnel, 11/10, and in Torchwood world I’d GIVE IT ONE (hur hur hur, it sounds like she means sexy sex, hur hur, sex).

My only real beef was that they used Blur’s Song 2 for a fight scene - which is just not something that has come full circle yet (the last time it was remotely acceptable - and even then not really - was in the Charlie’s Angels remake, with Drew Barrymore deftly avoiding implied gang rape by Sam Rockwell’s boyband army with her awesome chair-fighting skillz). The time for irony will come, but for now this song in any action sequence is still just lazy cliche.

Post the first

From a conversation I was lucky enough to have with a kindly academic at a conference on the works of John Milton:

Academic [played by Eddie Izzard, playing James Mason, playing god]: And what do you do?
Me [played by Helen Baxendale]: I work for Channel 4.
A: Ah! [pause] What’s that?
Me: Hmm… well, you know the BBC? On television channels one and two? We’re on four. Only I don’t actually work for the television bit, but for online.
A: Online? Oh, with the email, yes. So they have television on computers now?
Me: N- yes, more or less.
A: Splendid, splendid. Anything I might have heard of?
Me: [realises futility of trying to explain actual job so instead picks biggest Channel 4 show of decade as possibly recognisable] Well, Channel 4 makes a show called Big Brother.
A: Oh? No, I’m sorry, I can’t say I’ve - wait, isn’t that where they put people in a house and they FIGHT? [excitedly imagining gladiatorial combat]
Me: Yes, that’s the one.
A: Oh yes, I’ve heard about this, they fight - and the fat one called someone a poppadum.
Me: Yes, that’s right.
[long pause]
A: And what is a poppadum?
Me: Well, it’s a sort of-
A: - no, I know this, it’s a kind of restaurant, isn’t it?
Me: It’s like a big crisp you have with a curry.
A: A naan bread?
Me: N- yes.

Fantastic. As to what I actually do… I’m a commissioning editor at Channel 4 online’s lovely 4Talent networks, which cover up-and-coming talent in TV, Radio, Film, New Media and other arts, via online articles, short videos and “podcasts”, as I believe the kids are calling their downloadable audio files these days. We have four hubs - National, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Central England, and some smashing people in each of these locations running their respective websites. I’m responsible for 4Talent Central England, although confusingly enough spend a fair bit of time in London as well as Birmingham. I’m a LonBrummer. Or a different word that doesn’t sound, y’know, demented.